12-Year-Old In Custody Suspected Of School Threats, Mounds Police Say

A 12-year-old boy is in custody, after officers say he threatened a school shooting.

Mounds Police say the boy is now in the juvenile detention center.

Police said a student was at school, and told someone that he was going to go home to grab a gun to come back and shoot other students and staff.

The person he told let school leaders know, who called police.

Mounds Police Chief Antonio Porter says officers quickly responded to the threat today at Mounds High School. After a short investigation, he says they found the students threat was credible.

"We ended up detaining him, and taking him into custody and bringing him to the juvenile detention center," Porter said.

Porter says they always take incidents like this seriously, especially since the number of threats around the state has increased over the years. He says today they followed procedures and handled it quickly.

"Make sure everyone is in a safe place and safe environment, and in order to do that we had to take the threat away," Porter said.

Parents commend the police for their quick actions.

They said the school updated families on the issue, and say they were very comfortable having their kids remain at school.

Porter says the student will now have to face the consequences of his threat, and hopefully he'll be able to get some assistance or counseling.

"Hopefully a parent or adult, or someone of authority will be able to meet individuals who are coming across issues like that and get them to open up. Say 'hey, is there something going on?' All we want to do is try to help them. Give them some kind of aid, and in a situation like this you can't take it lightly," Porter said.

His name is not being released, because he is a juvenile.